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I had stood for a long time, looking, wondering, puzzling and fuming, when a Celt at my elbow, not unversed in Greek lore, as he showed by his excellent use of our language, and who had, apparently, studied local traditions, said: “I will read you the riddle of the picture, stranger, as you seem to be very much disturbed about it. We Celts do not agree with you Greeks in thinking that Hermes is Eloquence: we identify Heracles with it, because heis far more powerful than Hermes. And don’t be surprised: that he is represented as an old man, for eloquence and eloquence alone is wont to show its full vigour in old age, if your poets are right in saying A young man hath a wandering wit Hom. Il. 3.108. and Old age has wiser words to say than youth.Eur. Phoen. 530 That is why your Nestor’s tongue distils honey,Iliad 1, 249. and why the Trojan counsellors have a voice like flowersIliad 3, 152. (the flowers mentioned are lilies, if my memory serves).
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This being so, if old Heracles here drags men after him who are tethered by the ears to his tongue, don’t be surprised at that, either: you know the kinship between ears and tongue. Nor is it a slight upon him that his tongue is pierced. Indeed,” said he, “I call to mind a line or two of comedy which I learned in your country: the talkative Have, one and all, their tongues pierced at the tip.Source unknown (Kock, Com. Att. Fragm., adesp. 398).
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In general, we consider that the real Heracles was a wise man who achieved everything by eloquence and applied persuasion as his principal force. His arrows represent words, I suppose, keen, sure and swift, which make their wounds in souls. In fact, you yourselves admit that words are winged.” Homer, passim.
